


Blizzard

by Microdigitalwaker



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, Gen, M/M, Romance, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 12:10:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17043479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Microdigitalwaker/pseuds/Microdigitalwaker
Summary: An old favorite.Fusco goes out into a storm.





	Blizzard

Fusco hangs up glumly, placing his phone on his desk and giving it a desultory spin; it's his turn to have Lee this weekend but Sharon's just called from Westchester, where she's brought their boy instead.

"You know my folks can't handle a storm by themselves," she'd explained, going on to number her father's heart attacks and ending with a zinger, that there's that hill down the street just right for sledding, in fact Lee's out there now having a blast.

Fuck.

He glances at the clock; it's nearly quitting time and God knows where Detective Riley's off at. Fusco finds he doesn't really care though he takes a minute to wince; the Professor, even if he has the dog at his side, must have an awful time when the snow builds up, two inches already and that's just the start of the storm.

Fusco shrugs on his jacket, tucking his keys into the inner pocket; he's taking the subway home today, no use in getting stuck in the near-whiteout conditions. His beanie goes on next, his coat does't have a hood, though it's comfortable anyway, a dark brown with wooden toggles that remind him and Lee of Paddington the Bear, a real bargain he purchased at Syms, the one in the shadow of the World Trade Center, a store that's gone now.

The beanie is good though, with the Bayridge Puffins patch, Lee's hockey team. Scarf next, thick and a dark blue that Finch has complimented him on, saying it brings out his eyes so Fusco wears it all the time.

Finally, gloves, leather, cracked and worn but lined with some kind of fake fur that keeps his poor, broken hands warm. Ready, he hurries to the Precinct's foyer, hurrying because he doesn't want the Captain to catch up with him and start asking uncomfortable questions regarding Riley's absence or, even worse, rope him into staying and helping out. He did that two years ago and still has little nightmares about when the food ran out and when the detainees rioted over the insufficient number of blankets when the power died. Never again.

As luck would have it, Rhetta is next to the door, shivering too. A recently promoted Sergeant in dispatch, Fusco had taken a shine to her; she hasn't been around all that long and only knows the good Fusco, the one who makes all the collars, the one who brought down Simmons and HR. Fusco likes that. Plus, she's getting married soon, a mixed marriage; she's Dominican and her guy is a regular Staten Island Italian. Fusco's been giving her recipes, his good ones, the ones from his Nona.

"Way to keep a man is feeding him right,"hed tells her, bringing samples of stuffed peppers, his special ziti, his bitchin' lasagna.

Just this afternoon, they'd eaten caponata, a mixture of eggplant and olives, spread on bread from Dominic's bakery down the street from his apartment.

"Make sure the bread is good," he explained. "That's half the battle."

Now he glanced from the swirling white outside back to her worried face, then he notices her coat is good but her neck is bare.

"You taking. the ferry home, right?"

She nods.

"Girl, you know how windy it gets and you don''t have a scarf? You want to get sick?"

Rhetta sighs. "Someone lifted it from my desk. Serves me right, I should have locked it up with my gloves."

Fusco frowns, then brightens. "Look, you take mine. Bring it back on Monday," he tells her, not taking no for an answer, even winding it around her slender, brown neck until she's snug as a bug.

"There. Thatâ€™s better. Now go home and keep that man of yours warm."

She grins. "You, too!" And then she blushes.

™t wish," blushes Fusco back, dropping her a friendly wink, all the while thinking of a certain man with a limp.

*

Two blocks south and one block east and there's the entrance to the subway station where Fusco will grab the F train and, with any luck, make it home, easy-peasy unless the rails get crusted over with what must be a foot of ice and snow by now, and damn it, his train would be one that's mostly above ground and therefore exposed to the elements once you get past Pacific Street.

He's missing his scarf but that's okay, the station will be warm and the train warmer still. He lifts up his head and his feet grind to a halt in the thick, damp snow. The street's eerily quiet, muffled in that fairy tale way that is kinda nice, at least the first storm of the year, then nightmarish afterwards.

There's a man, huddled against the driving snow, the only one not running for cover, standing outside the stairs down to the station, lonely and stalwart like a sentry.

Oh Bob, Fusco groans, hurrying towards the panhandler. In the 90s, Mayor Giuliani basically won the war against beggars, a quality of life issue that was part of his platform, that and cleaning up the porn palaces that had made Time-Square a dangerous, interesting place compared to the neighborhood's current Disneyland appeal.

You aren't likely, at least not like before, to get hit on by a guy claiming to have AIDS or some other scurvy shit that scared passengers half to death, but there were still neighborhood beggars, the kind that made it their job to stand quietly on street corners, holding out a coffee cup, blue and white with a drawing of the Parthenon, nodding and grunting ˜Hello"™ to the regulars who dropped a single or two in the cup every day.

Bob was one of those guys, someone Fusco and a hell of a lot of other people tried to look after. Bob is polite and, judging by the Vietnam era patches and medals on his heavy winter coat, a guy who had suffered.

Fusco can relate.

"Bob, what the fuck?" gasped Fusco, throat aching at the intake of frigid air. "Man, you wanna freeze to death?"

Bob shrugs, staring desultorily at his nearly iced over cup. Fusco gets the hint, fishing out his last twenty until he hits the ATM again.

"The shelter kicks us out every morning. Doesn't open up again until six."

Almost two hours and that's when it hits Fusco that Bob's hands are bare.

Damn it, being good is hard.

He peels off his gloves, handing them over to the startled veteran. "Don't give me no argument," Fusco growls good-naturedly, holding the begging cup waiting to make sure that the gloves went on, that they fit.

They do and Bob stretchs his fingers, wiggling them happily.

"Hey, man. Thanks." "No problem."

Fusco, jams his hands into his pockets and soldiers on.

*

The streets of Bay Ridge are bare except for a few stragglers; the snow is now practically up to Fusco's knees, not saying much considering his height but still.. The wind is like a knife, of course it is, so he tucks in as tight as he can into his coat, popping up the collar and leaning into the onslaught.

Home is just five blocks away, five measly blocks, he can do it in a few minutes when the weather is nice. Ten minutes later and he's halfway there and that's when Fusco shivers to a halt

There's a man just ahead of him, not further than half a block, a man wearing just a suit, no overcoat, no nothing. Not just a suit but a damned fine suit, a mousey-grey that almost makes him invisible in the barrage of snowflakes.

He watches the man stagger along, noting the peep of shining brown shoe leather of, maybe, oxfords, shoes perfectly suitable for a boardroom, not for this blizzard. Two beats, a breath and then one that gets caught in Fusco's throat as he notices the guy's limping gait and the way his hair, beneath the crust of ice, forms adorably stupid tufts.

"Jesus Christ,"Fusco swears, trotting as fast as his little legs can carry him towards one Harold Finch. He's still cursing when he pulls his warmish hand from his coat pocket to grab Finch's elbow.

"Glasses, what the fuck?"he shouts over the blizzard's howl, his tone tapering into to a whimper when he sees Finch's face, _thankGoditsrednotgrey,nofrostbite_ he appraises, still aghast at how inappropriate it is that someone so good, so kind and smart and sweet and prissy as Finch is reenacting a scene from˜To Build a Fire.'

"Oh, Detective, am I happy to see you," Finch says, breathless and shaky. "My car was stolen. I was investigating an apartment and when I came out it was gone and so was my coat and my phone."

Fusco has a pretty good idea of what investigating means as he's seen Finch break into places a time or two.  Ordinarily it would give him a kick but all things considered, it sets off a hot tangle of emotions in his belly.

"I know you live nearby."

Fusco nods. "Yeah, about two blocks, come on," he shouts, grabbing Finch's elbow to guide him along but a thought hits him, one he's determined not to ignore,not even if it hurts. Gritting his teeth, he untoggles the front of his good coat and before Finch can protest he's got Finch's arms in the sleeves and is pulling it tight over the mellow gleam of his brassy silk waistcoat, fixing the front up good, like the man is a toddler.

One last little shudder and he makes a final sacrifice, removing his beanie, shaking out most of the tiny ice crystals that are obscuring the hockey patch. 

"I really must protest, Lionel," argues Finch, who is already looking more alive.

"Penguins are a good look for you," Fusco replies grinning a stupid grin that he knows makes him look like a lovesick cow.

Finch knows too, Fusco guesses, because he bends down stiffly, just enough to place a tiny kiss on Fusco's aching cheek.

Warm again, Fusco guides Harold home.


End file.
